Thursday, 9 May 2013

Looking back to the stones

It was a little stone circle, laid out a few thousand years ago I suppose, but see how many of the stones have sunk into the softer ground, while only two of them remain at what I expect is close to the original height, but you can clearly see many more of them as you walk around. Nobody pays it much attention, but I visit as often as I can, and see the past being slowly swallowed up by the moist earth, or perhaps not slowly but actually quite fast. I've never met anybody else here, but I can sense my ancestors much more keenly than at big bold brash Stonehenge. Typical of my rough Scottish lot, I suppose, even before Scotland came to be, to build a structure that wouldn't last. Whatever went on here, I expect it was rather tough, and perhaps unpleasant for some. But still, I come, and look at stones and trees and grass marked out with dappled sun.

14 comments:

Do you think it's an ancient grave yard of some kind? Or a site of worship perhaps? It does make you wonder!Regarding your comment "I expect it was rather tough, and perhaps unpleasant for some" - it sounds like I imagine an average afternoon at Job Centre Plus would be.

I don't know Craig, but these things are generally presumed to have had some symbolic or ritual meaning, maybe just as a gathering place. We have quite a few of them in Perthshire, along with many individual or maybe paired standing stones. (Oh... Hang on... I'll ask my little friend Aileen the Alien, who is visiting... Ah... silly me... Landing circles for visiting Antigravity Pods. They only sent little ones to Scotland, because the locals had a habit stealing the hub caps and scratching the paintwork. The big ones stayed down in safer Wiltshire. Mystery solved.)

As my reply to Craig suggested, the Mothership is more likely to have stayed safe in Wiltshire where the Neds couldn't get at it.

Your first question is interesting, because some do seriously suggest all of our ancestors may be from elsewhere than earth, although they are talking of tiny microbial seeds, not the big hulking aliens that may well have created me.

I think that may be a "Beam me up QuiScottie" circle actually. Must give that a try.

Hang on Claude, I'll ask Aileen... It's handy having her around. Oh! You are one of "The Little'uns". Bred small to fit as many into a pod as possible. "Clever but Difficult" is Aileen's quick summary, and an experiment that need to be restarted after a bit more tinkering..

Stone circles are things of awesomeness that we don't seem to have over here in Canuckistan (unless I'm missing something!) I remember climbing all over Stonehenge when I was 12. When I returned at age 14, it was all roped off and you (wisely) weren't allowed to clamber on the rocks anymore.

A Ned? Let me attempt a brief explanation... A Ned is a rough and uncouth Scottish fellow (usually - though females can be included on occasion) aged from about 10 up to 24 (after 24 they may become real villains or may change and grow up quite nicely) prone to random acts of relatively minor but annoyingly persistent anti-social behaviour such as verbal abuse, scratching of cars, kicking in of bus shelter perspex surrounds etc, while still being capable of kindnesses such as helping old grannys across the road. When Neds drink alcohol (which they usually do) they can transition quickly but temporarily into thugs, but when they sober up they just become Neds again. Most Neds do not work, other than at being Neds (whitening their trainers, adjusting the angle of their baseball caps, etc). They generally live off benefit money (theirs and/or their parents/carers), supplemented by minor but persistent shopflifting and the occasional 'dodgy deal' of various sorts. One of my best friends and good golfing buddies, now aged 42, was without question a Ned in his formative years in the town of Airdrie, then he skowly began to change, scraped into a lowly university, scraped a third class degree, blagged his way into a job in a big finance company, and slowly and astonishingly transformed himself into the high earning financial services consultant that he is now. I wish I earned as much as he does, but the smell of cannabis wafting from his garage late at night when his old pals visit, and the rattling and clinking of his rubbish bin still betrays evidence of his roots. He claims to still hold the record for Airdrie "car surfing" - jumping from one parked car to another without touching ground in-between, an honour gained at about age 14 and never, he claims, yet beaten. You get the picture?